The chapter presents the socio-cognitive approach (SCA) to communication that serves as a theoretical frame for intercultural pragmatics. SCA was developed to explain the specific features of intercultural interactions and thus offers an alternative to the Gricean approaches that can be considered monolingual theories. There are two important claims that distinguish SCA from other pragmatic theories. First, SCA emphasizes that cooperation and egocentrism are not antagonistic features of communication. While (social) cooperation is an intention-directed practice that is governed by relevance, (individual) egocentrism is an attention-oriented trait dominated by salience that refers to the relative importance or prominence of information and signs. Second, SCA claims that pragmatic theories have tried to describe the relationship of the individual and social factors by putting too much emphasis on idealized language use, and focusing on cooperation, rapport, and politeness while paying less attention to the untidy, messy, poorly organized and impolite side of communication. SCA pays equal attention to both sides. The first part of the chapter explains the main tenets of SCA. The second part discusses how context, common ground and salience are intertwined in meaning creation and comprehension. The chapter closes with suggestions for future research.

This chapter analyzes news discourses covering the peace talks between the Pakistan government and the TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan), the culmination of which resulted in a military operation known as Zarb e Azab. The data are news stories extracted from mainstream English-language newspapers in Pakistan – Dawn and The Nation. The aim is to examine the types of discourses constructed by the print media during the peace talks. To achieve this, a qualitative analysis is employed comprising a socio-cognitive approach to CDA that focuses on the use of language and the ideological construction of peace and war situations. The chapter also highlights the importance of responsible and ethical journalism and professional journalistic practices that may help to refine the ideological sensibilities of journalists.